


is there care in heaven?

by ptolemaique



Series: overhead the moon sits arbitress. [Black Flag x Reader collection] [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Blood and Injury, Developing Relationship, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Intimacy, Longing, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Romantic Friendship, Stitches, Supernatural Elements, Tending to Wounds, Yearning, acknowledging feelings, based on that tweet about tending to wounds, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26409730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ptolemaique/pseuds/ptolemaique
Summary: "and is there care in heaven? and is there love in heavenly spirits to these creatures base that may compassion of their evils move? there is; else much more wretched were the case of men than beasts. but o the exceeding grace of highest god! that loves his creatures so, and all his works with mercy doth embrace, that blessed angels he sends to and fro to serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!" - edmund spenser (1590)or, "bro... what if you were gently tending to my wounds :blush: while scolding me for being so reckless :blush: but you stopped mid-sentence when you looked up to find me longingly staring at you :blush: what then bro :blush:" - twitter user @givemeabrekk
Relationships: Edward Kenway/Reader
Series: overhead the moon sits arbitress. [Black Flag x Reader collection] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919557
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	is there care in heaven?

**Author's Note:**

> does this follow the tweet prompt? not entirely.  
> was i listening to a playlist called "religion... but make it horny" when i wrote this? yes

You were grateful that he was exhausted – whatever he’d done to knock on the thin door of your cabin this late and in this condition had obviously taken everything out of him. 

This wasn’t the first time Edward Kenway had shown up seeking your company, covered in bruises and bandages, horrifying you out of your drowsiness, but, thankfully, not having to treat him. The first time you’d had to give him stitches was terrifying. He winced and tightened his hands around air, straining beneath your fingers when you pulled the string through his cuts, but you were still occasionally haunted by the way he had cried out from the sting of having to use your good whiskey to stop him from dying of blood poisoning on your kitchen table. 

He had arrived half an hour ago, walking right past you when you opened the door and setting himself down on that familiar wooden plank he’d take as a surgeon’s table. A mass of blood, cuts all over his arms and legs, he had somehow managed to put his left arm in a makeshift sling around his neck. There was blood smeared across his face, drier than the rest – _thank God, it might not all be his –_ his clothes were in rags around him. 

You had to check that he was still breathing after he had taken his position. On visits like these he was usually so _loud_ , whether it was because of the pain or his raucous snoring after you finished and he could sleep, but you supposed he was simply too tired to complain, and too broken to snore, even if he was usually too proud to sleep under your care. 

Tonight, you lit more candles than usual, you had a feeling you’d need as much visibility as you could get, as well as lighting a proper fire to warm up the draughty room. Rolling up the sleeves of the nightgown you’d hastily grabbed when he knocked you out of sleep, you set about your first task. The process of taking his robes off was always far more meticulous than it had any need to be, even after so many similar visits. No matter how often you had to undress Edward, there were always new belts and golden buckles to undo, new layers of fabric, damp with blood, that you were certain both weighed him down and offered no protection from a blade to peel from his bloody skin. Within a few minutes, there he was, tattooed but otherwise as bare as the day he was born just as he had been so many times before. You smiled now at the memory of first having to undress him. He had been in a particularly rough fight with some guards, bearing wounds like tonight’s, and you’d had to use inexperienced hands to undo his breeches while he laughed at you, blushing like a schoolgirl from ear to ear as you exposed him. You could hardly bear to glance at what you had called his ‘private area’ – he erupted into a fit of laughter upon hearing it – but now, after seeing it so often covered in blood like the rest of him, it was nothing more than another appendage, no different to an arm. 

You knew now to keep your medical supplies (that is, the sewing kit your mother had given you as a child, a bottle of the strongest whiskey you could find, and a blanket to warm by the fire) close at hand whenever Edward was docked in Nassau. A routine of sorts had been memorised for his visits: first, light; then he was to be undressed; after this he would be cleaned with warm water, to make things easier for you and to prevent infection. You set about this next task. 

He kept his eyes closed, but he could feel the gentle warmth of your fingers on his skin as they lightly brushed a wet rag over his broken body. There was something unusual in the silence, he supposed, the pair of you would have talked about how he had ended up here again by now. One of you, usually Edward, would have made a joke to make the other laugh – he heard that laughter was the best medicine, and he loved your laugh. Perhaps that was why he took you from your sleep so often to play surgeon on him. You’d have chastised him for laughing enough to hurt himself again, usually opening a cut you’d stitched on his ribs. There was something about the way your hands danced over his body tonight that was different, and, though he couldn’t place it, the brief glances he shot at you said that you were focused, drenched in sweat and candlelight, your tongue sitting pressed against your top lip as you frowned down at the reddening water. He decided not to distract you. He was being enough of a burden already. 

You had realised that he thought you thought he was asleep, and thanked God again. It was beneficial, really, this little act he put on – it meant he wouldn’t let himself tease you for taking so long to thread the needle, nor would he scream curses loud enough to wake your surely wrathful neighbours again, who you were certain thought the pair of you were having an affair. 

Not that either of you would refuse if the other had asked. But now, you both thought separately, was not the time for such thoughts. You had far too pressing matters to attend to than your wandering mind and his oft-wandering hands that were trying very hard now to not reach out to you. 

You had no idea where the idea to start filling the uneasy silence had come from, or why, halfway through stitching a cut on his calf, you were now in the middle of a one-sided conversation. “I can hazard a guess at what’s brought you here tonight,” you caught yourself starting. “That sling was red before you bled through it, wasn’t it? I can smell rum on you, too.” He didn’t move an inch as you sunk the silver needle back into his flesh, though his mind screamed at him to grip onto _something, anything,_ _Jaysus_ _,_ _even her_ , as you closed his wound. “Only soldiers could have ribboned you so. If I were a gambling woman, I’d bet your crew got a few men bigger today.” You sighed. “Better that you lead them to an early grave than the English rope.” 

_Ouch_. He sighs in defeat, he knows that you hate how reckless he is with his crew, you believe it confirms your guess and you smiled softly to yourself as you worked. You paused for a moment before tying off the string at the end of the cut, closing it completely so it can heal, just to see if he stirs again. 

Edward forces himself to be all but dead to the world again. You soldier on. 

After what felt like hours, but was no doubt scarcely more than one, of talking to yourself as you sewed him back together, it was finally time to get the worst step of his recovery over with. You both mentally steeled yourselves as you cleaned your rag again, popping the cork from your whiskey bottle and soaking the now pink cloth. You pressed it lightly onto a cut on his stomach and felt a sharp intake of breath, finally hearing him groan as he clutched at your robe with the less damaged of his hands. You murmured an apology and his grip loosened. 

“You never make this easy for me, do you,” you said, barely above a whisper as you worked on a deep slice to his thigh. “Never let me go to bed without worrying for you.” Back now to his torso, you pretended to miss the way he slyly opened one of his eyes when you ran your soft fingertips over his tender skin, hot and tight under your touch. It filled him with relief, despite the stings, to be so vulnerable, even if it is only in times like this. Your touch eased him, he relaxed into your treatment with another soft sigh. Your eyes don’t stray from his body up to his face, locking instead onto whatever beaten part of him they see next. You were so... accommodating of him. Too many times, he realised, he had forced his shattered body past the wind chimes that led him to you and through your door, always with thanks but never with permission, to spend an hour or so screaming and bleeding all over your furniture, and, tonight, what he knew was your best nightgown. “You must have a guardian angel, or some saint to watch over you. How you survive, I don’t think I will ever understand.” 

Edward shifts, only slightly, but he puts himself into a difficult position you would have called spiteful had he not been pretending to sleep. His eyes close as you pour more alcohol on your rag. There’s a cut on his leg that’s started to bleed again, despite your ministrations, that draws you away from his face enough for him to chance at raising his head to get a proper look at you. Your hair, draped haphazardly over your shoulders as you bend over to work on him, covers your face, leaving only a silhouette cast by the candles behind you. You’ve decorated your cabin like a shrine, he realizes, or like a church altar, illuminated on all sides by heavenly light in opposition to the depths of night outside. He’s the closest thing Nassau has in this moment to a clergyman, lying all but prostrated before a celestial being whose divine tapestry is in his body, broken and healed every few days by your hands. He couldn’t quite pick up what you murmured at his feet, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that you were praying. 

He sighed again, his neck aching from staring at you, entranced, before he rests his head back on the board. You don’t look at him, accustomed now to his soft noises, and he closes his eyes once more. He’d have to pay you back for the wax you’d wasted on him, as well as all the alcohol, now he really thought about it. _What a job you’d had to do tonight_ , he thought. _What a mess I am._ Tonight, just as you had so many nights before, there you were cleaning him, anointing his feet with booze, rinsing away his vices and greed of the last week or so into a basin of dirty water in a draughty cabin on New Providence. So clean, he thought, that were he able to see his reflection in this moment he would not have recognised the man who stared back. 

The arm he had in the sling was one of the least damaged parts of him, but you noted the way he took a deep breath as you tugged it straight with as little strength as you could muster. It wasn’t broken, thank God, only sprained or pulled – the thought of having to set his bones terrified you beyond measure, and you were glad he hadn’t broken anything before. “People care about you, you know,” he heard you say, louder than your mumblings. You could feel your cheeks grow hot beneath your blurry eyes as you worked, trapping yourself in your thoughts. “Here and in England as well, I’ve no doubt.” With a deep, shuddering breath you soaked the rag again. “Your crew need you; the Republic needs you. The girls at the Avery need you to pay their wages in drink every week,” you let out a solitary laugh, and he tries his best not to laugh alongside you. 

For once, it was you that wouldn’t stop talking. “You’re such an idiot, Kenway,” you wrapped a spare cloth around one of his smaller cuts in an effort to bandage it. “You’ve such vision, but you can hardly see what you’ve got right in front of you.” There’s a moment of quiet, you stretch your aching fingers, and he tries to think of something to say before slamming his eyes shut as you move to cup his cheek with your hand. Your touch is warm, kinder than any he’s felt in his time here. He tries to convince himself that it’s just to check his temperature – any other thoughts and he may have an embarrassing problem that’d ruin the intimacy of the exchange – until your thumb draws lazy circles on his rough skin. “You look so far ahead that you miss the people who love you here and now.” 

He doesn’t catch what you murmur as you drag yourself away, doesn’t understand whatever tongue you speak as you admit that _if he knew what was to happen in the next few months, years, he wouldn’t waste the time he has left here._

Your hands move from him entirely, leaving him cold as you go to clean up after yourself, the job done as well as you could do it. He finds himself so desperate for your hands to land back on his body – entirely innocently, much to his own confusion – that he snakes one of his bandaged hands down the harsh wood of the table to tug gently at your robe, before his fingers tap at your own lightly. 

“I knew you were awake,” you smirked, pulling a low stool next to where he lay, your head level with his. 

He frowned, his confusion turning into playfulness as he heard you laugh again. “Damn!” Edward smiled, trying to laugh but instead wracking himself with pain, “Thought I had you fooled.” His thumb runs over the back of your hand, the skin soft under his, and you let out a soft sigh. “Thank you.” 

“It’s nothing, Edward.” You squeeze his hand gently, trying not to hurt him more. “I’m always glad to have you.” 

He swallows down any replies he thought were too forward, too presumptuous. “I’ll pay you back.” 

With a laugh, you admit “You’ve nothing else I want.” 

“Not even whiskey?” 

“Well, when you put it like that,” you let the words trail off with a thoughtful look he knows is a tease, and he gives you the closest thing he can muster to a chuckle. 

A few moments pass in silence, your hands still pressed together and your eyes locked in those of the other. He sighs. “D’you mean what you said?” 

“Every word of it.” 

“D’ya love me?” 

The words tumble from his mouth with all the grace of a ship beaching itself on a sandbar. You look at him, dumbfounded, wearing a blush he was certain he matched as he tried to make up an excuse, an apology, anything to get himself out of this mess – “I- I'm sorry, I don’t know where that came from, lass, I-” 

He is interrupted by a giggle. You’re _laughing_. He accidentally bares his soul to you in an intimate moment, and _you’re laughing._ He’ll never live this down, he realises, if you mention this to anyone at the Avery – but what a story it would have been if it had been someone else in his position, as much as the thought of anyone else being in your care sowed the seeds of jealousy in him. 

You force yourself to show a little mercy on him when you see his serious expression. Your laugh dies down and you sigh. Calm. “Of course I do,” he relaxes immediately, a smile breaking out onto his face. “I wouldn’t waste my good booze on just anyone.” It’s Edward’s turn to laugh, despite his aches, yet he says nothing more. “Do you love _me_?” 

“The only wounds I bear greater than these are the ones I earn by leaving you.” _Christ in heaven_ , you thought, the air snatched from your lungs. Tears threatened to escape your eyes again, but he lifts your hands together to wipe them away. “ _This is the port of rest from_ _troublous_ _toil, the world's sweet inn from pain and wearisome turmoil._ ” 


End file.
